


Hyphenated Identity

by Wish_I_Had_A_Tail



Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Fantasy Racism, Gen, Hate Speech, Holocaust allusions (only allusions), Judaism, Mutantphobia, Or at least discussion of hate speech, Religion, it works for like half a paragraph, kitty tries to go to university and be a normal person, magneto and kitty pryde spend time together, real racism/antisemitism (mostly mentioned), so I wrote this, someone asked me if magneto would kill a human jew, whatever we've decided to call it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2019-12-29 01:35:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18297650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wish_I_Had_A_Tail/pseuds/Wish_I_Had_A_Tail
Summary: Magneto is many things. Leader. Extremist. Father. Mutant. Jew. Do any of those take precedence over the other? Kitty Pryde's real mutant power is that she is one of the few people able to successfully make him consider compromise. What does compromise look like to a man who is more often than not labeled a terrorist?





	1. Chapter 1

The coloured blurs running through her periphery weren’t joggers. Something was wrong. When Kitty thought about it later, the speed at which they ran really should have alerted her earlier. She’d seen it enough times to recognize the frenzied pattern of people running for their lives, even out of the corner of her eye. But she had been engrossed in her notes. Or lulled into complacency by the familiar setting of her weekly study group. Or maybe the few months away at school had softened her instincts more than she’d expected. As it was, it took the girl sitting across from her abruptly stumbling back, toppling over her seat, and then scrambling away into a run to make Kitty finally look behind her.

Magneto, in full uniform, descended towards the outdoor study area. His cape flapped sluggishly in the breeze as he floated slowly down. The sun glinted off his helmet, and Kitty was so thrown off to see him here that she stared in frozen astonishment at that spot of light.

“Aaron Lieber,” he intoned, and Aaron, who was sitting _immediately beside her_ , stiffened with fear. “You thought you could hurt people without consequences.” Magneto turned one of his hands palm-up. “Consequences have arrived.”

Aaron had gone entirely pale. With a nearly imperceptible twitch of Magneto’s fingers, his wristwatch jerked his arm and pulled him into the air.

Kitty reacted at once; she jumped up on the table and grabbed onto Aaron’s leg, phasing him out of Magneto’s grasp. He tumbled down onto the ground with her, them fumbled onto his feet and attempted to run.

Somehow, impossibly, the girl who had been on Kitty’s other side was still sitting there. Shock had planted her in place.

“You –” she stared at Kitty with her eyes and mouth both in shaped into the same wide circle. “Kitty, you’re—”

“Get out of here!” Kitty roared at her, and the volume of her voice seemed to startle the girl out of her shocked stupor. Kitty didn’t have time to watch her run to safety. Magneto narrowed his eyes and a nearby bicycle rack ripped itself out of the ground and warped around Aaron’s wrists and arms. He let out a frightened little noise as he was pulled backward. His ankles dragged along the ground until Magneto yanked him back up.

Kitty walked quickly up the air to meet him, phasing Aaron out of his makeshift restraints, his belt, and his watch in one coordinated move. Keeping the two of them still phased, Kitty lowered them to the ground. Magneto let the metal fall loudly onto the concrete. He waited a few moments, then shot the watch at Aaron’s chest to check if they were still intangible. It flew harmlessly through him. Magneto narrowed his eyes in irritation.

Aaron was staring at Kitty like she had grown a second head. She could see the purple flutter of Magneto’s cape reflected in the brown of his wide, fearful eyes. “You’re a _mutie_?” he blurted.

“Don’t talk,” Kitty said under her breath. She’d need to unphase soon for him to breathe. She looked up at Magneto. He hovered in place with his arms calmly at his sides. She was under no delusion that this meant he wasn’t keeping a grip on probably a dozen pieces of metal around them, ready to strike.

“You’ve been posing as human at school,” he said, and he actually sounded disappointed. Kitty felt indignation, hot and angry, rising up her throat. “Really, Kitty. And I thought you were proud of who you are.”

“Erik, what are you doing?” she demanded.

“ _Erik?_ ” Aaron repeated, bewildered.

“Don’t _talk_ ,” she snapped at him.

“I’m sorry to disturb your studies,” Magneto said evenly. “But I am here for Aaron Lieber.”

“Why?”

“To kill him,” he said. Impossibly, more colour drained from Aaron’s face. Kitty unphased the two of them just long enough for Aaron to take a breath. She spread her arms in exasperation.

“Why?” she asked again.

Magneto’s expression darkened, and Kitty knew at once that asking had been a mistake.

“Your friend has been starting a little extracurricular club here on campus,” he said with the same calm tone. His eyes fixed on Aaron directly. “Holding meetings. Spreading newsletters. Harassing mutant students. What did you write on that poor girl’s door last month, Aaron? Death to muties?”

Aaron was staring right at him, unable to look away. He said nothing to defend himself, and this time Kitty was the astonished one. Magneto’s eyes darted between them. “Well,” he said. “It seems the two of you have been keeping secrets from one another.”

“He hasn’t killed anyone,” Kitty insisted stubbornly. She was embarrassed saying it like it was a legitimate argument. Magneto was the only person she’d ever fought that could make her feel like a hypocrite.

“And I am supposed to wait until he does?” he asked, predictably unimpressed. “He’s lighting a fire, Kitty. I cannot allow it.”

“I – I’ll stop,” Aaron said tremulously.

Magneto smiled. “Oh yes.”

This time when time Kitty solidified, he expected it; a whoosh of metal ripped Aaron out of her grip and scooped him up high into the sky this time. Magneto moved the two of them far up enough that Kitty wouldn’t be able to walk up the air in time to reach them. She stood and watched them rise, squinting against the sun. She couldn’t tell what he had warped to wrap around Aaron this time, but the dully shining metal extended up to cover his mouth before Kitty’s eyes.

“Goodbye, Kitty,” Magneto said, and looked skyward. Aaron’s muffled protests faded as they rose into the distance.

“Erik!” She cried out. “Erik, stop! You can’t! He –” she blurted the first thing that passed through her head. “He’s head of the JSA!”

“His other extracurriculars are of no interest to me,” Magneto said placidly.

“Jewish students association,” Kitty urged.

Amazingly, Erik actually stopped. Then he turned and floated a few feet closer, out of sheer curiosity. Still too far for Kitty to ever manage to catch up to them. What a sight the three of them must make, Kitty thought absently. What an absurd tableau. But he had stopped, so Kitty pulled on that thread as hard as she could.

“And – he – he does all kinds of things for Jewish students. Not just students. Community events, organizes, all kinds of – so people can feel safe. Read about him! He helps so many people. Isn’t that anything?”

“Humans,” Magneto dismissed.

“Jews!” she cried out. She was getting desperate. “Doesn’t _that_ part of you mean anything to you anymore?”

Erik hovered, very still, his shadow an unwavering dark shape on the grass below.

“No, kill him I guess if you don’t care,” she went on, since she had apparently abandoned all sense of shame. “You call out the professor all the time for abandoning his own people, but I guess it’s fine if you do it, right?”

Kitty was strung tight as a bowstring, waiting for his eyes to glaze over with disinterest and for a tiny motion of his hand to suddenly send the him soaring into the horizon. Instead, he said, “How dare you?” with a voice that sent cold into her bones.

Kitty had been alone with Erik before, but she’d never _faced_ him alone before, and she’d never before heard him address her like he did his enemies. It was like he spoke from an entire other set of lungs, ones that breathed hate instead of air. She was acutely aware that right now that if he willed it, the ground could have quivered to life and swallowed her up for her unabashed insolence.

But he hadn’t. And he hadn’t flown away. Insolence was something she had the advantage in.

"Hey, whatever,” she said irreverently, acutely aware her lips were already forming what was probably the worst thing she had ever said. “So none of what happened to you means anything anymore.” She swallowed. “I guess after what you’ve lived through, what’s one more of us gone?”

Erik was still listening to her, probably out of sheer appalment. Both he and Aaron were staring at her now with rapt attention. The empty courtyard was silent enough to hear the whisper of rustling leaves.

“Really, Erik,” she finished, “I thought you were proud of who you are.” There was a beat of heavy silence, where Kitty swallowed down her guilt and met Erik’s glare unwaveringly. She was daring him to prove her wrong. Kitty had no way to count the time besides the pounding of her own heart; it was maybe twenty beats until either of them spoke.

“I apologize for this,” Erik finally said, his tone carefully neutral. “Goodbye, Kitty.”

And something slammed into the back of Kitty’s head before the world fizzled out like a light.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That took me much longer than it should have. Hope it is satisfying! Comments make my day :)

After Magneto had fled and she had woken up alone in an empty cement courtyard, Kitty picked up her cell phone, dialed Ororo, and made the phone call equivalent of walking home with her tail between her legs. She was retrieved in the jet like a misbehaving child needing to be picked up. Her room was as she had left it. Before she knew it, she had been at the Institute four days.

It had taken an entire two before the university delicately suggested she transfer out to somewhere more fitting to her needs.

“They cannot kick you out for being a mutant,” Ororo protested. “Just don’t withdraw.”

“Technically, they can,” Kitty corrected. “It’s not in the non-discrimination clause. And I don’t know how much of it is just being a mutant and how much is, like, that people heard me addressing Magneto by name.”

“Did no one at that school recognize you as an X-man?”

“I’m not really a household name,” Kitty shrugged. She rubbed a hand down her face in exasperation. “Maybe I should have just been out at school, I don’t know. Maybe Erik had a point.”

“I understand the impulse to hide,” Ororo said, which didn’t really assuage Kitty’s guilt at all. The X-men had reassured her she’d done well, when she’d recounted the whole incident after coming back. That there wasn’t much else she could have done. That hadn’t made her feel better, either.

“I could have kept carrying around my communicator,” she said bitterly. Ororo said nothing in response.

“Why _wasn’t_ it with you, Katzchen?” Kurt asked her. He was sitting across the kitchen table from her, side by side with Ororo. Kitty swallowed hard.

“I guess I was just trying to live a… civilian life for a while.”

Kurt’s sad smile was like salt in the wound. “A normal life, you mean?”

Kitty couldn’t in good conscience disagree. Kurt and Ororo were hard enough – facing the professor, though, she had done with absolute dread. _That_ meeting was a series of embarrassments; she had to detail first her failure, then her closeted enrollment in school, then the appalling things she’d said, which had Xavier looking mortified and impressed in equal measure.

“Do you have any idea where he might have taken him?” he’d asked her, and Kitty had to gulp down one more humiliation and say no.

She had nothing to go off. She hadn't even seen which direction he flew away in. Desperate, Kitty had gone through her phone and sent out a mass message to every number Erik had used over the years.

_Is he dead?_

Now, four days later, the buzzing of her phone against her thigh had her excuse herself from the table. She faltered when she saw the message on her screen.

She hadn’t expected him to actually reply.

_Not yet._

Kitty shut her door and plopped down onto her bed. The white light of the screen burned into her eyes.

She typed _Where are you?_ and erased it at once. She did the same with a handful of other messages – each felt just as absurd as the first, until she gave up and sent _Why not?_

Erik’s message took only a few seconds to appear. _I have been occupied._

Kitty snorted. Her fingers flew over the keys. _Occupied proving a point?_

_Indeed._

_To who?_  Kitty shot back.

No response. Kitty waited long minutes, and asked, _Is he hurt?_

Her stomach twisted a little when the typing bubble appeared. It lingered for a long time.

_He is not dead._

The response wasn’t surprising, but her gut clenched a little even still. _Just drop him off at the police,_ she tried.

The typing bubble popped up anew. It faded in and out several times, until finally the finished message blinked into existence.

_Good night, Kitty._

Another two days passed, and an email from the university’s student coordinator suggested a clandestine meeting to discuss her status. In the early morning, before class started or anyone else was there to see her. Ororo had predicted as much.

The email suggested 6am – Kitty was miffed enough that she countered with 5 entirely out of pettiness.

It was still pitch black when she arrived. This time Kitty’s communicator was tucked discreetly into her pocket. The door was still locked, and Kitty sighed deeply and looked at her phone. Still early. She considered just phasing inside, but thought the optics of that might not be ideal given why she’d been asked to meet in secret in the first place.

Restless, she did a lap around the building. The lights around the student courtyard were off for the night. In the dark, she could barely see the metal barrier separating the area from the road. Or the shadowy outlines of three men walking alongside it. Her attention was drawn to both when she saw the man leading the group melt through the metal fence.

Kitty froze. She stopped walking, reached for the communicator in her pocket. Her sudden stillness caught the attention of the man in front, and she cursed under her breath. It was an amateurish move, and a wave of frustration rushed through her at how profoundly out-of-practice she was.

“I’d advise you to leave, child,” Erik said. Kitty pressed the button on the side of the little radio, and started walking towards them. In plain clothes, Erik was almost unnoticeable on the street, an old man in a long coat with his hands in his pockets. A scarf bracing him against the cold. The two men with him – she recognized one now as Aaron – walked close behind him, keeping pace. It wasn’t until she came closer that she noticed the collars, solid metal gleaming around their necks. She thought at first that he was pulling them along; a moment more of observation showed it was clear he didn’t need to.

If anything, Kitty thought, Erik was practical. Restraints that didn’t restrain – they followed him unencumbered, like dogs on leashes that were invisible and infinitely long. She wondered if either of them had tried earlier to run, or if they’d realized immediately there was no sense in it.

“How did you know I would be here tonight?” Erik asked. Kitty held her pace moving towards them, unsure how to respond. “That’s close enough,” Erik warned, narrowing his eyes. Both men’s hands flew to their necks with choked sounds of fear. Kitty stopped. Erik’s face relaxed, and the collars loosened again; she could hear their breathing resume, heavy and frightened, even with the distance between them.

“Maybe you’re more predictable than you think,” she bluffed. Erik let out an amused sound through his nose.

The concrete expanse between them was damp, echoing back the chill of the night air.

Her eyes scanned over Aaron. He was unharmed as far as she could see – but terrified, trembling visibly despite his coat and staring at her with huge, imploring eyes. He didn’t dare speak – neither of them did. She saw white paper peeking out from their jacket pockets.

“What’s the plan, Erik? You thought about it for a few days, then brought him back to where you planned to kill him the first time so you can finish the job?”

“Yes, that’s exactly the plan.”

The other man took in a ragged breath, and Kitty’s attention darted over to him. His head was shaved, and there were pins all over his jacket she could not make out the designs of. His face was pinched tight with terror. She squinted at him for a few seconds, trying to place him.

“Who’s that?”

Erik adjusted his hands in his pockets. “A rare overlap of demographics,” he said coolly.

Kitty hazarded a guess. “Is he the point you were proving?”

“Derek here believes he is of the superior race,” Erik said helpfully. “He and his friends like to demonstrate their supremacy with petty crime in certain neighborhoods. Derek suggested they up the stakes. Most recently he and his friends burned down a deli with the owner still inside.”

“We didn’t know he was in there, man,” Derek pleaded, voice cracking.

Erik could not have looked more unimpressed if he had tried. “As you see,” he said dryly, “Aryan perfection.”

“Why is he here?” Kitty demanded. “You’re gonna leave him on the courtyard too?”

“No,” Erik said patiently. “I was planning to take him somewhere else after I’ve killed the two of them together.”

Kitty could feel the faint buzz of the signal transmitting from her pocket. She needed time.

“Why together?” she pressed. “He’s not special. You’ve taken out dozens of these neo-nazi types.” Kitty actually had no idea if this was true, more an educated guess than anything. But Erik didn’t contradict her. Instead, his eyes gleamed dangerously.

“Ah, but that’s the thing. He is special.” Erik cocked his head. “Charles would call him _gifted_.”

The revelation took Kitty a moment; she stood there in silent bafflement when it clicked in her mind. “You’re kidding,” she blurted. “Is this a joke?”

“Deathly serious,” Erik said coolly.

“Where did you even _find_ —” she cut herself off with a sharp exhale through her nose. “Erik, are you _kidding_?”

“I gave him full opportunity to decide to change his life and better himself,” Erik said. Kitty snorted.

“Yeah, I bet.”

“But unfortunately,” Erik continued, “not every mutant supports my vision of a better future for us.”

Abruptly, Derek took a step forward – then stopped, afraid to move unpermitted. “I’m not a fucking mutie, man,” he said desperately, “I told you, I’m not, I can’t be—”

Erik didn’t even turn to look at him. “Who are you trying to convince?”

“I’m not!” his eyes went to Kitty, pleading. He took another aborted step. “You gotta help me,” he begged.

“How old are you now, twenty?” Erik asked, this time turning his head halfway to glare out of the corner of his eye. He clucked his tongue. “If you hadn’t spent all this time furtively ignoring who you are so you could better fit among your bigot friends, you might be able to fight me off right now.”

Kitty was shaking her head, furious and bewildered. “So what, this is like a ‘one cancels out the other’ type thing? This is how you win our argument? This is really _stupid_ , Erik.”

The headlights of a passing car cast the three of in a second of brilliant yellow. She saw clearly the shadows of Erik’s wrinkled face, weariness and certainty that had been etched into his skin through time. The terror on his captives’ faces. The light faded as the car roared past.

“I am not trying to win anything, Kitty,” he said, unruffled. He spoke with a paternal tone that made her bristle. “You made some points that made me think. I needed to test my own principles. For my own sake, not to prove anything to you.” He sighed. “I didn’t think you would be here. You should go now, if you don’t want to watch.”

Kitty resolutely ignored that last part. “So, what,” she said incredulous, “you’re gonna do this every time you get into this situation? How many mutant neo-nazis can there _be_?”

“Of course not,” he said, irritation creeping into his voice for the first time. “I’m not naïve. This is more of an exercise.” He paused. “Honestly, I’m amazed I found the one.”

“An exercise to do what?” Kitty demanded, outraged.

“To make sure I haven’t lost sight of myself,” he said with perfect, clear conviction. “Haven’t become… unbalanced in my goals. Or forgotten the sacrifices I decided long ago I was willing to make.”

“Unbalanced?” she echoed. This debate was out of hand – absurd before it had even started. He was infuriating to argue with, especially in the wake of her embarrassment days ago, and with lives on the line. Kitty silently commended the professor for the past thirty-some years of having done this. “You can’t balance the scales by killing _more_ people!” she shouted at him.

Magneto managed to shrug with just his eyebrows. “That depends on which scales.”

They stared each other down, at an impasse. The chilly air burned in Kitty’s lungs.

“You get this is insane,” she said desperately. “Even for you.”

“God willing,” Erik said softly, “this is the last mutant whose life I ever have to end.”

The grass and the leaves in the trees around them started to rustle anxiously, in fits and starts, though there was no wind. She looked at Derek, who looked somehow more terrified than before when he noticed it, and pointedly looked away. No control at all.

“Please,” Aaron croaked out suddenly, so quiet Kitty almost didn’t hear him. “ _Please._ I didn’t hurt anyone. I’m not like him. I wanna go home…”

Erik took his hands out of his pockets and turned them slowly palm-down. “That’s enough from both of you,” he said, and the metal collars stretched and warped, flattening out and expanding into gleaming spheres around their heads.

“I probably have another minute at the most before your X-men arrive, isn’t that right?” he said. Kitty’s stomach dropped. Before she could answer, he flicked his index fingers and the domes dragged suddenly down until the two of them fell to their knees. Aaron clawed frantically at his neck; she could hear the clink of his fingernails bouncing against the metal. Derek stayed perfectly still, rigid with fear. 

“You’re killing him because of what I said to you,” Kitty managed. “You’re killing them because of me.”

Erik’s eyes turned sad. He smiled bitterly. “We both know my choices are no one’s but my own,” he said. “Close your eyes.”

Stubbornly, Kitty said, “No way.”

Magneto sighed. “Guilting me to the last.” Fondly, he added, “Charles has taught you well.” He lifted his hands outward, as if in preparation. “Make no mistake, I am a mutant first,” he said. “I have to be. But you were right. That isn’t all I am. I thank you for reminding me.”

And then he closed both his fists, and the metal spheres crumpled like paper.


End file.
